Saya Maung Tha Noe: A commemoration of his literary legacy

 

July 15

By Dr Myint Zan

 

SAYA Maung Tha Noe (6 May 1932-12 July 2022) has passed away at the age of ninety. Though it is a sad occasion one can take solace and indeed commemorate his life and achievements that he had lived nearly as long as other distinguished Burmese writers. Selectively they would include (in terms of longevity) the late Sayamagyi Daw Kyan (100 or 101 years), the late Sayagyi Maung Htin (U Htin Fatt) (96 years) the late Sayagyi Minthuwun (U Wun, 95 years), the late Sayagyi Dagon Taryar (U Htay Myaing) (94 years), the late Sayamagyi Ludu Daw Amar (92 years).

 

A leading pioneer of colloquial Burmese writing style

Saya Maung Tha Noe’s literary career started in the city of Mandalay and the University of Mandalay.

 

In December 1965 Maung Tha Noe (hereafter ‘MTN’) presented a paper at a seminar held at the Dhamma Beikman building in Mandalay. He proposed that the formal writing style should be complimented (though perhaps not displaced) by the adoption of colloquial (spoken) Burmese. At that time, the proposal was quite radical. Soon thereafter a few Upper Burma writers began to write in this direct, fresh and innovative writing style of ‘colloquial’ (so to speak) Burmese. The late U Kyaw Yin, then Rector of the University of Mandalay, famously stated around 1966 that ‘Wherever the elephant goes it is bound to become a path’. ဆင်သွားရင် လမ်းဖြစ်တယ် The implication is that if people adopt a particular writing style it would establish a trend. Among the Mandalay writers, the late historian Dr Than Tun (1923-2005) and the late writer Ludu U Hla (1910-1982) changed their writing styles from formal to colloquial. The late Ludu Daw Amar (1915-2008) switched to the colloquial writing style later than her husband Ludu U Hla. But switched she did and the books published by her after 1966 including but not limited to the biographies of artiste Shwe Mann Tin Maung (published 1970) and literary and political figure, Sayagyi Thakin Ko Daw Hmaing (1976) were written in direct, effective and colloquial writing styles. So was Anyeint (‘Street theatre’) (first published 1973). Though Daw Amar’s Artistes Loved by the People ပြည်သူချစ်သော အနုပညာသည်များ written in formal literary style won the 1964 National Literary Prize none of her subsequent landmark works on Burmese culture, arts and artistes won any national literary prizes. This is deplorable. The reason for non-awards was the dogmatic assumption by the then national literary prize-awarding committees that ‘colloquial writing style’ is not ‘pure literature’ စာပေမမည်

 

Saya Maung Tha Noe was awarded the National Literary Award for Lifetime Achievements in the year 2017. All of his writings in the Burmese language post-1965 are in the colloquial style. Is that a retrospective indication that those who write in colloquial styles deserve such accolades?

 

At least two of the books written in colloquial Burmese by my late mother Professor Dr Myint Myint Khin (15 December 1923- 19 June 2004) on AIDS လူတိုင်းအတွက်ထိုးတဲ့ ခေါင်းလောင်း (‘The Bell that tolls for everyone’) and on ‘Myanmar Food for Longevity and Health’ သက်ရှည်ကျန်းမာ မြန်မာအစားအစာ the last stage of consideration for the national literary prizes. The committees declined the awards because they were written in colloquial styles and according to them colloquial writing styles are not ‘proper literature’. The late writer ဆရာဝန် (Dr) Tin Shwe requested my late mother to write in formal Burmese style. My mother replied to Dr Tin Shwe that she did not write to get national literary prizes but to let her messages mainly on health and education matters spread to as many as possible in the most effective and direct way

 

Dr Myo Thant Tin, a national literary award winner, told my mother around 2004 that, at that time, the literary award committees were anxious to preserve the formal written style and not to let it ‘disappear’  ပျောက်သွားမှာစိုးလို့ When I told MTN that conversation he replied bluntly ‘so what if it disappears?’ ပျောက်သွားတော့ ဘာဖြစ်လဲ

 

I might add that more than 56 years after MTN proposed the colloquial style quite a few writers have switched to writing colloquially. Personally, though, it is ‘jarring’ for me to see a mixture of colloquial and formal writing styles alternate on the same page and sometimes in the same sentence. There are a few good writers who wrote in a formal mellifluous writing style like Sarpay Beikman U Aye Maung (1914-2002) and Saya Paragu (1921-2011) and those who write in a clear, colloquial language like the late Ludu Daw Amar and Maung Tha Noe himself. But quite a few wrote and still continue to write in mixed styles.

 

Political shifts of Maung Tha Noe: from opposition to the Vietnam war (the mid1960s) to support of the United States in the 2003 Iraq war

Around the mid-1960s MTN composed a series of poems with the generic title of Ma Lin Byar poems. They were political poems written mainly in opposition to the ‘imperialistic United States’ အမေရိကန်နယ်ချဲ့ involvement in the Vietnam war.

 

Fast forward from around 1964 to around 2003. In 2003 MTN told me privately that the Ma Lin Pyar (anti US poems) were written when he was foolish and foolhardy ရူးတုန်းမိုက်တုန်းက ရေးထားတာ

 

The late MTN had publicly also stated that he was wrong in his former left-wing political views. MTN told me in 2003 that he supported the US-led war against Iraq 2003 since it was, he said in English ‘humanitarian …’ then he paused. When I added ‘intervention’ MTN also said ‘intervention’.

 

I have heard that Ludu Daw Amar had expressed her regrets that Maung Tha Noe had changed his political stance. MTN was, in the 1960s, among the Ludu coterie လူထုဝိုင်းတော်သား which in the 1960s unanimously opposed the Vietnam war and ‘the American imperialists’. Had MTN’s political views shifted to ‘the right’? When we met in 2003 (the same time MTN stated to me that he supported the US-led 2003 war against Iraq) he also said that the late journalist Oway U Nyo Mya (1914-1985) was politically right-wing. In his ‘Teapot Discussion’ လက်ဖက်ရည်ကြမ်းဝိုင်း forth nightly columns between 1969 to 1972 in the long-defunct Oway Journal U Nyo Mya writing under the pseudonym Maung Thumana published several articles on the Vietnam war. Manifestly, Maung Thumana did not vociferously oppose the United States’ role in the Vietnam war as his university classmate Ma Amar (Ludu Daw Amar) and the Ludu coterie did. But Maung Thumana was not a supporter of the US role in the Vietnam war either. If U Nyo Mya were to come back to the year 2003, would he be ‘right-wing’ enough to support the Iraq war?

 

Maung Tha Noe as a student activist in the early 1950s

Now, back from the early years of the 21st century and the mid-1960s to the early 1950s. In October 1953 MTN was a 21-year-old student activist who together with (among others) the late writer Maung Tha Ya (1931-2016) were involved in student strikes that occurred in that month and year. Around 20 years later in 1972, Maung Tha Ya published a book titled in translation Do you dare to be stung [by bees] ကျဉ်တုတ်ခံဝံ့ မခံဝံ့ In that narrative presented as a novel Maung Tha Ya gave himself the pseudonym ‘Htun Naung’ and Maung Tha Noe as ‘Tee Kyi’. MTN visited the United States in 2004 to participate in the University of Iowa writer’s programme. I do not know whether or not the student activists of ‘yore’ (in the year 1953) MTN and Maung Tha Ya met over 50 years later in America.

 

Snippets of controversies and disputes with other writers

In his long literary career, MTN has had disputes, on literary matters, with other writers.

 

I recall that MTN had a dispute with the late Tekkatho Min Maw. If my memory serves me right, the back-and-forth articles critiquing each other’s philological (ဘာသာဗေဒ)concepts took place around 1973 or 1974 in the now defunct ရှုမဝ Shumawa magazine

 

MTN has also critiqued another literary figure whose name is mentioned at the start of this article. The late Maung Htin published his well-known novel ငဘ Ngaba in 1946. The story about the travails and misadventures of a naïve Burmese peasant especially during the war years and immediately following the Second World War has been translated into Japanese and other languages. Ngaba has also been made into a movie. In the presence of the late Saya Dagon Taryar (1919-2013) MTN told me around 2005 that since Maung Htin had Chinese ancestry a few passages in Ngaba were (for want of a better expression) anti-Burmese. I have read the novel several decades ago. I do not recall any passages which can be construed as ‘anti-Burmese’. Apparently, both Maung Htin and MTN were on the airwaves of foreign radio broadcasts on this matter. Dr Aung Gyi (born 1953) a medical doctor-writer told me that he had heard Maung Htin (who also wrote satire and humour stories) stated on the radio as to why MTN was so much against him since they were not ‘competitors for the same girl (lover)’! ရည်းစားလုဘက်လည်း မဟုတ်ပါဘူးကွယ် (Maung Htin is about 23 years older than MTN).

 

I have read an article by MTN also in which he critiqued the writer the late (medical) doctor Dr Kyi Aye who spent the last few decades of her life in the United States. MTN critiqued Kyi Aye’s novel titled Tiring (or Tiresome) Home-coming နွမ်းလျအိမ်ပြန်. In an ironic renaming of Kyi Aye’s novel, MTN’s critique was given the title Tiresome Kyi Aye.

 

In personal conversations, MTN has also stated that the late Burmese-American historian Dr Michael A. Aung-Thwin was confused between the partly Pali-based word Kamma/ Karma (Sanskrit) and ကာမရာဂ Karma Yaga (lust). MTN did not say whether Michael Aung-Thwin made that mistake in a speech, conversation or in published articles or personal letters.

 

Learning a few philological concepts and disagreeing with MTN’s translation of the word ‘God’ into (part) Burmese

I have learned a bit of philology from Saya MTN. He stated that the months in the calendar such as January should not be transliterated as ဂျန်နဝါရီ Jan na war ri but should be adapted as ဇန်နဝါရီ Zan nar war ri. Likewise, the month of June should not be ဂျွန်လ Jun la but ဇွန်လ Zun La. I thank MTN for pointing that out. Currently in television broadcasts and in written publications ‘Russia’ is transliterated as ရပ်ရှား rat shar. Though now the usage of rat shar is prevalent the better expression is the Burmese adaptation which is ရုသျှ ru sha. I trust that Saya MTN would have agreed.

 

I respectfully disagree with MTN’s suggestion that ‘God’ or ‘the Deity’ should be translated as 'a0g Deva Daywa which is, one supposes, of Pali origin. It was perhaps Saya Yudathan (Dr Adoniram Judson) (1788-1850) who about 200 years ago first used the term ထာဝရ ဘုရားသခင် Htawara Phaya Thakin for ‘God’ or ‘Deity’. That term is very much familiar to and has been used by Burmese Christians and non-Christians alike for about two centuries. It also fits in well and captures the meaning embodied (or ‘incarnated’?) in the translated English word ‘God’.

 

A Glimpse at only a few of the literary works of Maung Tha Noe

As I write there are two books by Maung Tha Noe on my desk. One is a translation of Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder. It was published in July 2002. On the front page, Saya had written (in English) ‘To Maung Myint Zan’, signed it and dated 24 XII 03 (24 December 2003). Another is the part translation (from English not from the original Japanese) and part commentary of a 17th-century Haiku poet and his poetry. It was published in June 2003. I just finished reading the booklet about the Japanese Haiku poets Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) and Seishi Yamaguchi (1901-1994) about an hour after Maung Tha Noe passed away and before I knew of his passing through social media. I have not read his translation of Sophie’s World (after all these years!).

 

I have read quite a few of his other books though including English translations of the late poet Tin Moe’s poems Songster in a Boat လှေတစ်စင်းနဲ့ ခရီးသည် first published in 1963. I have also read English or foreign poems he translated into Burmese with brief explanations in MTN’s နိုင်ငံရပ်ခြား ကဗျာခံစားမှု (Appreciating Foreign Poems) which was perhaps published in the mid to late 1990s.

 

I gave a presentation on 17 December 2003 at the 50th anniversary of the Myanmar Historical Commission conference. Coincidentally that day was the 730th anniversary of the day of the death of Sufi poet Jalaluddin Rumi (1207-1273) on 17 December 1273. In my presentation, I compared a poem of Rumi with two religious poems of the Anglican poet George Herbert (1593-1633) and Burmese poet Zaw Gyi (1907-1990) respectively. Among others, Saya Maung Tha Noe and a few elderly literati attended my presentation. Saya MTN told me that he had first heard about Rumi from me. He told me he had bought a few books about Rumi in English when he visited the United States in 2004. I understand that MTN has translated and published with commentaries at least one book dealing with Rumi’s poetry. I am pleased to have contributed to the corpus of MTN’s literary output.

 

I last met Maung Tha Noe in November 2017 at the National literary awards ceremony where he was conferred the lifetime literary achievement award. He gave a speech for himself and on behalf of two others who also were recipients of the same award that year. In his speech, Sayagyi Maung Tha Noe repeated himself quite a few times. Taking his age into account this is understandable. He repeatedly stated စာများများဖတ်ပါ (‘Read a lot’). Saya Maung Tha Noe had read and written a lot in his literary career which spanned about seven decades. He had passed away but his literary legacy is of such significance that it deserves a respectful commemoration.